With Hillary Clinton's lead growing,
Barack Obama appears to be overreaching to keep the
spotlight and highlight their differences.

His suggestion that sex education begin
in kindergarten seems a great leap forward even for a
liberal Democrat. While Barack says it must be
"age-appropriate"
sex education, one need not be Roger Ailes to
imagine what the GOP oppo-research boys can do with this
one.

In the CNN-You Tube debate, Barack,
asked if he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Syria,
Venezuela, Iran and North Korea in his first year as
president "without precondition,"
blurted yes.

At the Woodrow Wilson Center on
Wednesday, Barack attacked Hillary from both flanks. By
giving Bush a blank check for war, said Barack, with
Clinton in mind, "Congress became co-author of a
catastrophic war."

Then, Barack stepped smartly to his
right and assumed the stance of tough-minded realist who
opposes the Iraq war because he wants to fight the real
war, against al-Qaida and Islamic terrorists. Obama
pledged to send 7,000 more U.S. troops into
Afghanistan and, if Pakistan does not go after al-Qaida
in its border provinces, to slash U.S. aid and send in
U.S. troops to chase down the terrorists.

Now a threat to intervene in a friendly
country against the will of its government is serious
business, especially when it is a nation of 170 million
Muslims, seething with anti-Americanism, which has atom
bombs.

If Barack is talking about covert
operatives and Special Forces slipping into Pakistan, or
surgical strikes with Predator drones, that is one
thing, best done quietly and with the complicity of
Musharraf.

But if Barack is talking about sending
U.S. ground forces into Waziristan or Baluchistan, why
would this not leave us in another mess like Iraq, with
the U.S. Army bleeding and no way out? Would not Osama
bin Laden rejoice in a border crossing by U.S. troops
into Pakistan, enraging the Pakistani nationalists as
well as the border tribes?

After half a decade of fighting in the
Islamic world, has not the lesson sunk in with the hawks
of both parties? U.S. troops in an Arab or Muslim
country are more likely to create an insurgency than
quell one.

The primary reason Osama gave for
declaring war was that U.S. troops were occupying soil
sacred to all Muslims—Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca. After
9-11, we pulled our troops out at the request of the
king. This was an admission that our vast military
presence there did not make the Saudis safer, it made
them more vulnerable.

Are we or the Saudis less secure after
closing our bases?

The lesson applies to Iraq. For all his
wickedness, Saddam was no threat to U.S. strategic
interests. Smashed in the Gulf War, his military had
lost its navy, air force and much of its armor, none of
which had been replaced during the 10-year embargo. And
no Iraqi had been found in any terror attacks in the
post-Cold War era, save the abortive plot on the first
President Bush in Kuwait, which was apparently payback
for our countless attempts to kill Saddam.

When the Marines departed, the Hezbollah
attacks stopped. What did it avail us to go into
Lebanon? How are we less secure after we pulled out?

Undeniably, U.S. combat troops can
defend regimes and kill our enemies. Equally undeniably,
in the Islamic world, the presence of U.S. troops is an
irritant to the population, an instigator of
insurrection and a recruiting cause for al-Qaida.